54 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

oh i forgot to talk about torso pitch

having the worst torso pitch in the game along with all your weapons being in the side torsos is just a really bad combination.

the atlas needs like 25 degrees torso pitch

because 16 degree torso pitch is really dumb. the atlas can basically only fight on completely level terrain. thats another one of the reasons its such a bad mech.

so yeah add better torso pitch as one of the things certain assaults like the atlas and banshee need.

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If you can't learn how to spread damage in an Atlas during regular games, try finding a friend and doing Steiner Colosseum a bit, running drills with things like shooting at a target (there are handy ones painted on some of the obstacles) and immediately turning away, or having your partner shoot just past you repeatedly so that you can practice judging when to turn back, shoot him, and then turn away again. It's amazing how much even ten minutes of drills can do to improve your game.

you realize you can still shoot an atlas in the torso even when its torso twisted away from you right?

torso twisting really only helps against spread damage like missiles or LBX. because anyone who can aim their damage is still going to aim for your torso.

torso twisting has its limited uses but it was never really all that great. and now that assaults cant torso twist as well its even more situational than it was before.

I would still like to see assaults get more torso armor quirks. alternatively PGI could scale assaults down to the proper size. but obviously armor quirks are easier for PGI to implement than rescaling most of the assaults.

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I've seen an MRM ac20 build do work, and I know for sure its a functional combo since I run MRM40 ac20 on my Loyalty Victor. But the Victor is highly mobile(comparatively). Atlas is like trying to move around with tar under your feet.

yep and the problem with an atlas running a build like UAC20/MRM60 is that other mechs like the Orion IIC can run similar builds and do it way better.

an Orion IIC can run an UAC20, x4 SRM6s, and 2 lasers. It gets a similar 100 damage alpha. But it also goes 75kph and has better life expectancy than the atlas.

the atlas is completely outclassed by clan brawler heavies. it needs some serious help.

Edited by Khobai, 05 December 2017 - 10:24 AM.

[BlueStrat]

I've stripped all my 90-100 tonners except my MAL-MX90. They're simply not worth taking into a match. Heck, even my Awesomes with their barn-door hitboxes are a better choice to drop with. That's 6 out of my 14 assaults that are worthless and will not see battle. Seeing as I own a total of 32 mechs including all classes currently, that's a big bite out of my playable stock.

And combined with the crap MM in solo-PUG?

Not a happy camper and not prepared to give PGI any money for anything at this point. Vote with your wallet. It's the one sure way to get PGI's attention.

Edited by BlueStrat, 05 December 2017 - 02:40 PM.

[Troa Barton]

Yeah the D-DC is garbage... It needs the armor quirks the other Atlas get.

[Satan n stuff]

JediPanther, on 05 December 2017 - 09:57 AM, said:

The best thing you can do with an atlas is strip it for parts and save it for later. Atlas are expensive so might as well keep it unless you really need to free up a mech bay. I managed to win that highlander clan version from a loot box. Tried it found it suck and striped it. I keep it just as a trophy mech.

Not much you can do with the current game meta to make an atlas good. Biggest lfe and the weapons of a poor 40 tonnes is best most can do with it now.

Highlander IIC has a bit of a problem in that no matter what you try to do with it it's almost impossible to take full advantage of it's upgrade options because the low hardpoint count means that it has to bring heavy weapons that tend to take up an exceptionally large number of crit slots. You find yourself adding jump jets even if you don't expect to use them because at least that way you can fill up the tonnage. There's also the tiny problem that all of the variants have missile hardpoints on arm and torso, which makes them rather hard to manage when combined with the other assorted weapons. My own Highlander IICs tend to have entirely redundant streak SRMs and inadvisably installed ER large lasers as a result.
Aside from all that, it's hitboxes are plain terrible and it's got most of the same problems as the 100 ton assaults.

[MechaBattler]

100 ton mechs in general could use a little more twist speed.

[OrmsbyGore]

Garran Tana, on 05 December 2017 - 03:54 AM, said:

I have noting against engine desync itself but the values set for the assaults after the desync are horrid. I feel like +30 armor points on every torso location would make assaults decently durable with current mobility, but this mobility is just not fun to play to begin with.

+30 armor to the torso sections isn't going to buy you much time against a high damage pinpoint alpha, whereas being able to twist can not only allow you to more effectively control where you receive damage, but how much damage you receive (remember, there is a 60% damage reduction when a destroyed component is hit before damage is transferred to the next component)

[oldradagast]

Troa Barton, on 05 December 2017 - 02:28 PM, said:

Yeah the D-DC is garbage... It needs the armor quirks the other Atlas get.

Yep, and it doesn't have those quirks because ECM is still "super overpowered" - we're to believe - and a total hard-counter to LRM's, etc. You know, as if it were still 2013. Yes, back then the DDC was perhaps the best mech in the game, at least until the initial wave of broken Clan stuff was released, and ECM was god-tier.

Now, ECM is merely a cute feature that helps a bit now and then, and the Atlas in general is a horrible chassis. You could slap the entire pile of armor quirks seen on the Atlas D onto the DDC, and people still wouldn't feel much any reason to play it.

PGI has a strange habit of balancing some things based on insanely out of date info, such as the worthless jump jets on larger mechs, as if it was still the age of the PPC + Gauss jump sniper.

[OrmsbyGore]

Khobai, on 05 December 2017 - 09:25 AM, said:

4) bigger engines should give better acceleration (but not better torso twist or turning speed). im fine with torso/turning agility being desynced from engines size but bigger engines should still accelerate better than smaller engines. A lot of assaults cant even move out of artillery strikes in time due to their poor acceleration.

Why? Shouldn't a bigger engine provide more power for movement of all kinds? What is torso twisting besides accelerating around a fixed point?

[Khobai]

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Why? Shouldn't a bigger engine provide more power for movement of all kinds? What is torso twisting besides accelerating around a fixed point?

no it shouldnt. putting a bigger engine in a tank doesnt make the tank's turret rotate faster.

because the engine that drives the wheels and the motor that drives the turret are seperate independent systems.

its the same on mechs. the engine that drives the legs is not the same as the motor that rotates the torso.

but the simpler answer is this: we tried that before and it didnt work. so why go back to something that didnt work? we dont need kodiaks with 400 engines being extremely agile like they were before. assaults have to have a weakness and that weakness should be lack of agility.

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I have noting against engine desync itself but the values set for the assaults after the desync are horrid. I feel like +30 armor points on every torso location would make assaults decently durable with current mobility, but this mobility is just not fun to play to begin with.

+30 is better than nothing I suppose.

although thats still only like half a laser vomit alpha.

that might work if you also got rid of the high damage alphas entirely.

Edited by Khobai, 05 December 2017 - 04:26 PM.

[OrmsbyGore]

Khobai, on 05 December 2017 - 04:19 PM, said:

no it shouldnt. putting a bigger engine in a tank doesnt make the tank's turret rotate faster.

because the engine that drives the wheels and the motor that drives the turret are seperate independent systems.

its the same on mechs. the engine that drives the legs is not the same as the motor that rotates the torso.

but the simpler answer is this: we tried that before and it didnt work. so why go back to something that didnt work?

So I'm always skeptical about using real-world examples to justify decisions for a game that takes place in a fictional universe; tanks don't walk on 2 legs either. However, since you brought it up, in real life tanks have turret traverse speed limited by power output dedicated to turret turning vs turret weight; more power (bigger engine) directly translates to greater traverse speeds (faster torso twist). Though obviously they can change the traverse speed at will (slower if you're tracking a stationary/slow moving target, faster for a faster target) when it makes sense.

Important to note that I am talking about modern tanks, not designs from WWII.

Edits: I'm looking for a solution that doesn't ad a layer of complexity; yes, the power sources that drives the treads is not the same as the one that turns the turret, but unless they add an option to change the turret/twisting engine in a mech, there's really no good reason why the engine can't be used for both in this game.

Also, while I agree that more firepower and armor should have a trade off, i feel that being much slower for the same rated engine, much larger, and being the highest priority target is already plenty of trade-off, especially if there's no melee combat or knockdowns to counter lights who face hug legs

Edited by OrmsbyGore, 05 December 2017 - 05:04 PM.

[Kangarad]

Khobai, on 05 December 2017 - 04:19 PM, said:

no it shouldnt. putting a bigger engine in a tank doesnt make the tank's turret rotate faster.

because the engine that drives the wheels and the motor that drives the turret are seperate independent systems.

its the same on mechs.

Not quite, mechs use myomer muscle fibres for movement, which work better the more energy they can use up to a certain point where they are likely to explode (which is why masc and turbochargers even work).


But I do not think that accell/decell or turn speed are realy thing sassaults need. becuase even if they had that they would still be under armoured mechs that brign alot of weapons but do not have the heatsink to support firing them alot. theyr just too heavy for the 72 slots they have, especialy when combined with the increased wheight of larger engines.

One of the reasons they fall so easy is that they are very large targets, and most you can centercore from any direction without major problems, this means that unlike smaller mechs you do not have to go throguh certain components at times and lowers theyr overall % of damage taken before death tremendously.

[Shadowomega1]

Dunno why people say the Atlas and the Atlas D-DC are piles of junk for quick play. I pull mine out and go on a nice rampage as long as the team decides they want to lose. Even a few of those saying that in here have dropped with my Atlas. 2 ERML 2 RAC5s, 3 MRM10s 1 ecm.

[lazorbeamz]

Atlas is obsolete tech inferior to clan mechs. Thats all

[Mechrophilia]

What's even worse is that mechs with very slow torso twist speed, like the Atlas DDC, achieve the least numerical benefit from "torso speed" skill tree nodes. Said nodes only increase torso speed by a percent of what the mech's base torso speed already is, so if base torso speed is slow, the increase will be miniscule. *shrug*

[Damnedtroll]

Atlas is somewhat situational, sometimes it's glory, sometimes it's melting before doing something. Slow short range brawling mech tend to do that...

[Nightbird]

It's a slow juggernaut, king of 1vs1 at 100 meters. Sucks everywhere else...

[Satan n stuff]

Khobai, on 05 December 2017 - 04:19 PM, said:

its the same on mechs. the engine that drives the legs is not the same as the motor that rotates the torso.

The engine that drives the legs is actually the same one that drives the torso. Mechs use myomer bundles for movement, which are functionally equivalent to muscles. The engine is a power plant, bigger engines generate more power and allow the mech to go faster. Actuator weight is calculated in with the engine, except for non standard myomer types.
The only reason PGI eliminated the engine size from the torso speed formula is balance, realism has nothing to do with it because the systems that would make it realistic are abstracted away.

[Xetelian]

Engine de-sync was a terrible implementation of a reasonable idea.

Main idea:
Stop Kodiaks from twisting like a light mech.

Main problem:
PGI can't balance twisting.


Most of my assault mechs, all 3x MAL, all 3x STK, all 3x NSR, all 3x the KGC, all 4x the AS7, all but one of 4x the KDK, and all 5x the DWF aren't worth piloting except for the KDK 3 and I own only one of those. I'm very happy I didn't end up splurging on the Spirit Bear, it is a joke when MASC does next to nothing for a 100 ton mech but is absolutely amazing on the EXE (95 tons). The rest of them feel like garbage too. Most of these mechs, after a quick check, have 10-14 accel 10-14 decel 30-39 turn rate 58-69 torso turn.

While my BLR has 81 torso turn rate. VTR has 90 torso turn rate.
Most of my heavies outside of the TBR have 81-90 torso turn rate.


Putting what 15%? bonus skill nodes on 9 accel/10 decel is not enough of a change to warrant the investment.

Agility needs to go up on everything except the KDK 3 and by a lot. Instead of nerfing everything with the engine de-sync couldn't they have just edited the TBR and KDK 3 by hand and left the rest of them to their minor successes?


Right now piloting an Atlas is a chore, I own 34 assault mechs and only 3 of them are regularly piloted.


Again, they could have nerfed the TBR and KDK 3 without crushing the rest of them with the nerf hammer.


I feel like it will be literal years (how ever long this game lasts) before they make big assaults more agile, if ever.





You can't move fast enough to get out of smoke, you can't move fast enough to peak-fire-hide and you can't twist fast enough to spread the damage in a brawl.




I don't want to hear how some of you have great matches in your Atlas, how the Atlas is still your big papa. You'd do 100% better in a laser vomit BLR 1G or a loyalty Victor with 3 AC10s or a Cyclops or Banshee. All of which have a torso turn rate higher than 80.

[Savage Wolf]

Tiewolf, on 05 December 2017 - 02:33 AM, said:

Its a sitting duck with an inbuild bullet magnet! You need luck to brake the mandatory 500 damage mark for an assault. I knew that assaults are in a bad spot right now but so bad?

Didn't know there was a mandatory damage mark for mechs. In that case I recommend LRMs, MRMs, LB-X, RACs and Machineguns as they produce higher damage numbers. Don't use pinpoint weapons as they will be more effiecient and so you will kill mechs with less damage.

[Tiewolf]

Savage Wolf, on 06 December 2017 - 04:42 AM, said:

Didn't know there was a mandatory damage mark for mechs. In that case I recommend LRMs, MRMs, LB-X, RACs and Machineguns as they produce higher damage numbers. Don't use pinpoint weapons as they will be more effiecient and so you will kill mechs with less damage.

Nah 500 min dmg its just a rough margin for me when i assess the preformance of my assaults. I need more kmdd or solo kills to be satisfied with less dmg. I can`t tank anyway so dmg is my measure.

The sad thing is that i start to understand LURM and longrange assaults that stay in the back and refuse to share armor. Great job PGI to force assaults in a longrange weapon carrier role while mobile heavys are doing the assaults job at the front better then any assault could ever do atm.